The horrible thing about Maureen Dowd’s op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times (“Granny Get Your Gun”) is not what she says, but the existence of the op-ed in the first place.  For those of you not wanting to click through, Dowd writes about Hillary Clinton’s problem, which she describes this way: “She can’t figure out how to campaign as a woman.”

First, writes Dowd, Hillary came off too masculine, with too much “swagger” by voting in favor of the Iraq war, which (according to Dowd) caused her to fall behind a “feminized man” (presumably Obama) and lose the 2008 election.

Now, complains Dowd, Hillary has “overcorrected” and is running as a dotty old grandmother, driving a van and going to Chipotle.

Setting aside these and other numerous stupid observations, the article fails in its opening paragraph and premise, prompting me to ask….  Why should Hillary be campaigning “as a woman”?  What does that even mean?  And who in their right mind would ever think to ask that a man campaign “as a man”?